TODAY.AZ / Politics

Ilham Aliyev: Azerbaijan to cooperate with Italy to rebuild newly-liberated territories [UPDATE]

09 December 2020 [12:22] - TODAY.AZ

By Azernews


By Vafa Ismayilova

President Ilham Aliyev has expressed Azerbaijan's determination to closely cooperate with Italy to rebuild newly-liberated territories that had remained under Armenian occupation for about three decades.

Aliyev made the remarks at a meeting with a delegation led by Italian Foreign and International Cooperation Minister of State Manlio Di Stefano in Baku on December 9.

The president stressed that Azerbaijan intends to sign relevant contracts with Italian companies over the restoration of its lands.

"The first contracts were signed with Turkish companies. This is natural, because Turkey is our brotherly country. I hope that the next contracts will be signed with Italian companies, and that will be also natural, because Italy is a very close friend to Azerbaijan. During long time of our diplomatic relations, and especially during the war, we felt your position and the fact that your parliamentarians visit Azerbaijan less than in one month after the war stopped, demonstrates our strong, friendly relations. And we highly value this gesture of solidarity, gesture of support," the head of state said. 

Aliyev said that his administration will build new infrastructure, new roads, new railway lines, new airports, new hospitals, new schools because Armenians destroyed everything during the three decades of occupation.

The president recalled his meeting with a large delegation led by Vice-Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian parliament Ettore Rosato on December 7, saying that this was the first delegation from the European Union area, visiting Azerbaijan after the war.

"I am sure that these gestures of friendship will have a practical implementation because today we talk about not only energy sector, but maybe non-energy sector, the big potential in the liberated lands for agriculture, for tourism, for creation of renewable sources of energy, and as I said already, the huge infrastructure projects. We are now preparing our plan for rehabilitation and reconstruction of those territories. And I am sure that we will work very successfully," he said.

Aliyev also commented on the Italian delegation’s visit to Azerbaijan’s Aghdam region and Ganja city, to witness Armenian-inflicted mass-scale destructions in the said areas.

"The visit of the Italian parliamentarians was very highly valued in Azerbaijani society. Because as you can imagine, people are very attentive and very sensitive to all the signs of support, and all the society accepted this visit as a sign of support. And also, what people say, and I share their view, is that while some of your neighbors in parliament adopt strange resolutions recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh, Italian parliamentarians come to Aghdam, come to Ganja, to demonstrate their respect to Azerbaijan, to demonstrate solidarity to the sufferings of Azerbaijani people," the president stressed.

Touching upon two resolutions adopted in the French parliament on the recognition of the separatist regime Azerbaijan’s  Nagorno-Karabakh region, Aliyev said: "With respect to recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh, everybody knows that even Armenia did not recognize this illegal structure. Therefore, if some country wants to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh they can make some steps inside their own country, they can provide some lands in their own country, and to create the second Armenian state within their own country, not in Azerbaijan.”

Furthermore, Aliyev said that the Azerbaijani-Italian ties “will have a great future, because so far we achieved great success in political, economic area, energy security area.”

“Soon we will complete the final part of the Southern Gas Corridor, and thus, Italy and Azerbaijan will be very close partners in energy for decades ahead. This is a remarkable achievement of our joint efforts, on the efforts of the very broad group of countries. As you know every year we organize in Baku Advisory Council of the Southern Gas Corridor. Italy is always present at a high level, and these meetings also helped us in order to build this historical pipeline on the length of 3.5 thousand kilometers. So, on one end is Baku, on the other end is Italy and of course, we are looking forward to deepen our cooperation," he said.

In turn, Italian Foreign and International Cooperation Minister of State Manlio Di Stefano shared his condolences with Aliyev over those killed in the 44-day Nagorno-Karabakh war. 

"Let me first of all to convey to you, your people our sympathy for the victims of the war, that was really tough one, and we followed it with great concern from Italy. You can not even imagine how much in Italy this war was felt, because we feel this area of the world being so close to us, in any sense. So we really tried to avoid any political understanding of the war, and we just tried to tell the truth to the country what was going on. And our political positioning, that I am glad you recognize is positive, was just based on UN resolutions and everything that was already written on the papers, I will say. Obviously, it was a real relief for us when ceasefire was signed. We think that it was the first and most important thing," Manlio Di Stefano said.

The Italian parliamentary delegation was received by President Ilham Aliyev on December 7. During the meeting Aliyev said that friendly countries, including Italy, will be involved in the new infrastructure projects to reconstruct the territories liberated from Armenia's 30-year-old occupation. The president noted that he would like Italian companies to take an active part in the restoration and reconstruction work, adding that relevant proposals have already been made to the Italian side and preliminary contacts will be established via a videoconference in the coming days.






URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/201324.html

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